some cases, it is unclear whether quota-
tions are from interviews conducted for
this book or if the words are from previ-
ously published sources. Because the
narrative alternates between Houdini’s
lifetime and the present (and even occa-
sionally breaks chronology within Hou-
dini’s own time), the lack of an index is
especially unfortunate. Integrating the bi-
ography of someone long dead with mod-
ern assessments and one’s own research
process is an interesting idea. Posnanski
is a skilled enough writer that the re-
sult is engaging and highly readable, but
the book sometimes feels like a rough
draft rather than a polished narrative.
To Posnanski’s credit, I found only
two unambiguous factual errors: the sub-
title of the significant Houdini biography
by William Kalush and Larry Sloman is
given as if it were the title (though it is
correctly listed in the Selected Bibliogra-
phy), and superstar magician David
Copperfield never sang in any of his
television specials. Of course the line be-
tween error and understandable over-
sight or interpretation can be fuzzy, and
Houdini experts will debate some of Pos-
nanski’s assessments. For example, Hou-
dini’s psyche has been the focus of entire
books, but that doesn’t stop Posnanski
from offering his own ideas.
The only other book I’m aware of to
feature criticism of Houdini so promi-
nently is The Houdini Code Mystery(2000)
by Canon Rev. William V. Rauscher,
though there is little duplication since
most of the critics quoted at length by
Rauscher were Houdini’s contemporaries.
Additionally, Rauscher’s discussion of
Houdini and séance fraud is not limited to
the post-mortem séance from which the
book gets its title. Three books on Hou-
dini and spiritualism that are more widely
available are Houdini’s own A Magician
Among the Spirits(1924, with many
reprints), Houdini Speaks Out: I am Hou-
dini and You are a Fraud! by Arthur Moses
(2007, revised 2014), and the more credu-
lous The Magician and the Spiritsby Debo-
rah Noyes (2017). Houdini’s films are
analyzed in the most detail in Disappear-
ing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New
Magic of the Twentieth Century(2010) by
cinema scholar Matthew Solomon.
Some readers will get more out of
The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdiniif
they read a general Houdini biography
first, while others may be inspired to do so
afterwards. The most well documented
general Houdini biography is the thor-
ough but out of print book Houdini!!!....
(and its limited-edition companion vol-
ume Notes to Houdini!!!), both by the late
Pulitzer Prize winning biographer Ken-
neth Silverman (1996) [both reviewed in
Skepticv6 n1 1998].* * *A more readily available alternative is the
contextually rich, illustrated biography
Houdini: The Life and Times of the World’s
Greatest Magicianby Charlotte Montague
(2017, re-released 2019). It includes an
index and “Further Reading,” but there are
no notes. Montague ends the book with a
two-chapter annotated list of Houdini in-
spired books (including Houdini’s own,
some major biographies, and many nov-
els), films and TV shows about him, and
even video games featuring Houdini. This
is an excellent complement to Posnanski’s
book, and the most extensive recent list in
popular book form. (The most thorough
lists are on the well-organized website
http://www.wildabouthoudini.com, maintained
by blogger John Cox).
Montague opens the book with a
helpful two-page overview of his life, then
surveys all of the major Houdini life and
career highlights missed by Posnanski, in-
cluding more about Houdini’s family, his
aggressive presidency of the oldest lasting
national magicians’ organization, more
detail on Houdini’s pioneering airplane
flight, secrets of many of his most famous
tricks, a chapter on his friendship with
Arthur Conan Doyle that is broader than
Posnanski’s, and narration of Houdini’s jail
escapes and other of the relentless public-
ity stunts and on stage feats that kept au-
dience members buying tickets.
The sidebars that appear throughout
the book are sometimes about people or
topics that were tangential to Houdini’s
life, but they helped me understand
Houdini in a different way than do the
minutiae in more focused Houdini biog-
raphies. For example, the dozen pages de-voted to Houdini’s film career includes
background on the history of film and a
sidebar on how the work of one of his
producers evolved into a major motion
picture studio. From these I was better
able to understand how Houdini’s films
went from being serials to features, and
better appreciate his early use of a robot
character. Montague persuasively ana-
lyzes Houdini’s brief passion for film as a
facet of his determination to stay on
top of entertainment trends, and dis-
cusses how and why his film career
briefly soared and then plummeted.
While not her focus, Montague’s
Houdinialso has extensive coverage of his
work on séance fraud. She mentions, for
example, that he wrote about it as early as
his 1906 book The Right Way to Do Wrong,
which was published more than a decade
before his more extensive and famous
Magician Among the Spirits(1924). She
even notes that he died before he could
publish his intended follow-up, The Can-
cer of Superstition. Montague includes
informative sidebars on many mediums
and psychic investigators, including
Harry Price (with whom Houdini corre-
sponded extensively), Houdini friend
Joseph Rinn (see also eSkeptic, January
30th 2013), and medium Eusapia Pal-
ladino. Montague’s tone is skeptical, as
the chapter on the medium “Margery”, ti-
tled, “How Did She Do It?,” suggests in
part that she sometimes used her foot to
make the séance table move.
Houdini: The Life and Times of the
World’s Greatest Magicianby Charlotte
Montague is a good general biography. Al-
though Houdini blogger John Cox rightly
points out that Montague’s biography in-
cludes errors, such as the story of Houdini
magically ringing the bells of the Kremlin
(which Posnanski debunks), it is on par
with most other biographies in terms of
reliability. Montague’s book is reasonably
up to date, too, with, for example, an illus-
tration of a Houdini spiritualism lecture
poster that was rediscovered relatively
recently. Having illustrations on almost
every page illuminates his life and evokes
his showmanship, as well as making the
book easy to dip into. Its coverage of the
rich social context of Houdini’s era ex-
ceeds that in wordier biographies.volume 25 number 1 2020 W W W. S K E P T I C. C O M 6 3